


all cherished, if half remembered

by Bloodsbane



Category: Original Work
Genre: Other, Poetry, poems from high school and college
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:55:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26823256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bloodsbane/pseuds/Bloodsbane
Summary: A collection of my old (and maybe some new?) poetry. That's all, really.
Kudos: 2





	1. To Be Complete (2014)

**Author's Note:**

> So for years I've always lamented the fact that I don't really have anywhere to put up or share my original stuff, even if it's old, and a majority of it was done for school. Mostly concerning my poetry, because while there's obviously some rough stuff, I still like a lot of what I made, if only for the nostalgia. 
> 
> Then I finally realized what better place to put my old stuff for posterity than a literal fucking archive for written works. 
> 
> Anyways, that's what this is going to be. I'll post new poems in batches or on their own whenever I feel like it. 
> 
> \---
> 
> This first poem is one of ten that I had to work on for what was essentially my 'senior thesis' for high school. I went to Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, specifically for Creative Writing, and we had to create a portfolio of our best poems for the end of the year as our final assignment. 
> 
> More specifically, we had to make a chapbook, in any form we desired. Some were really creative! I'd been drawing for a couple years by then, so I decided to make a book where my poems would be on one page, and then an image representing the poem would be on the one beside it. 
> 
> I'm going to be posting those 10 poems together in a batch, along with the illustrations that accompany them. Any notes/thoughts on the individual poems will be posted in the end notes.

Start out small, a tiny green heart

buried deep in dark places: bed graves and

broken roots

where no one will have to look at you.

They pass loudly above

as you wait in a hammock of

downtrodden dirt,

forgotten sentiments.

Then begin to swell; engorge yourself

in thin sunlight as it breaks through

dredge of cold and lonely days. 

Find clumsy comfort in spiraling isolation –

daydream of praise for strained growth,

this smooth skin the truth of

each damp night alone.

But find all you will get

is a wrench from the familiar,

and a basket borne of ashen splint.

Blinding light in a pit

full of others just like you.

Prepare yourself for the feast.

Feel as they peel back all that beauty,

dig dirty nails beneath each layer of skin,

spray faint whispers of your blood;

vapors in the air

your only semblance of a scream.

The bone of their guillotine teeth snap down

to slice you cleanly apart

from that little green heart.

They pull it from torn flesh,

hard, dull surface

drenched in the sweet sourness

of your entire being,

and find they feel complete

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting this poem is reminding me that one time in class, we were actually given onions to peel... for some reason. I remember there being emphasis on the layers of the onion, actually, and how thin they actually are. Can't remember if the assignment itself was to write a poem ABOUT onions, but well, this is probably the result of whatever was going on. 
> 
> (but of course, it is not actually just about onions)


	2. Bedlam Baidam (2014)

__

_Baidam translated is "shark" … a constellation of stars (Zugubau Thithuyial). This constellation consists of seven stars…_

* * *

she is

seven deadly stars

the silhouette of sharks:

creatures who cannot feel oxygen flow

across blood-blossom gills unless

they move, rock through salt and darkness.

she is a shark;

fingers restless and

pulsating, scratching gills into

the hungry skin of her arms.

her constant movement.

she is also darkness, dense pockets

of space. black holes

collapsing inward

all which dares to touch her.

i want to touch her,

like a finger to lips

thin and full.

flirt with what may

consume me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually didn't remember very much of this one, and I feel like it used to be a lot longer than the final draft is. It's a bit simple, I guess, definitely not one of my favorites of the old works I'd done. 
> 
> But! I do still really like the art I drew for it; good colors, decent hands.


	3. Complimentary (2014)

In a house of splintering white

and sharp comforts:

a box.

Paintbrushes before open canvas,

auburn room still in contemplation,

she grows anxious. Her feet

flee to the window looking out

to catch her preferred palette – 

warm corn yellows in

thick grass, the gold of

harp strings, winds skirting

a lake shifting emerald and sapphire,

before fading mossy brown,

an ink infection of shadows

by the edge of a dense,

looming wood.

She despised deep blues,

scorned a sky of darker hues.

And in her orange dress

like a burning sun,

she turns away,

closes black blinds

in fear of darkness.

But what she could never see were

fireflies, lemon drops dancing

compliments against brush strokes

of quiet cobalt night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still like this one a lot actually, but that's just 'cause im artsy fartsy, I guess. Also, why did I make the picture for this one so dang small? Me @ past me learn how to size your canvas before you draw it itty bitty


	4. Boundless (2014)

__

_“The rabbits mingled naturally. They did not talk for talking's sake, in the artificial manner that human beings - and sometimes even their dogs and cats - do. But this did not mean that they were not communicating; merely that they were not communicating by talking.”_

  
― Richard Adams, _Watership Down_

* * *

Between us is

leather-bound papyrus,

grasses grown from poetry

and starlight sewn by gods

Bookcases become broken walls

of dusty brick relics

Our table curls

into a cobblestone trail

So far down the table,

she seems merely an outline

A world is held within her hands

I see ideas flow through paragraphs

spill over, running down her fingers

to stain the foot-worn carpet

_Watership Down_ rests in

trembling hands

I see myself:

a small rabbit

with big ears and incisors

lost in plains where grasses grow too tall

Every page, another mile

to reach a great salvation

She reads the seeds of Poe and Frost

curled up so high above me

before I even notice

her bright eyes greet mine

My wide ears twitch

I stretch my legs,

long and powerful,

and tear across the field

to meet her

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CATCH ME BEING A SHAMELESS WATERSHIP DOWN STAN AT AGE 18 like damn i forgot how unsubtle this whole poem is


	5. just one (2014)

just one

kiss,

you suggest. i agree –

we meet together

in an age-old tradition

which still seems silly to me;

perhaps emphasized by the abnormal

willingness to forgo that human disgust

with what is not ourselves;

press flesh against

something so other, a thing

unattached,

and to taste a richness

we run the risk

of never tasting again.

i see now, too late,

that friends do not start

secret meetings of lips

behind structures

in the damp and exciting shade.

pretending

it was just a kiss,

and just a palpitation,

and just every-day sadness

on nights when we couldn’t

reach each other

just one kiss becomes

just one night,

one lie stretched between us,

this red string

vibrating with a world’s worth

of disturbances.

you are the ninety-nine percent

of ocean no one has explored, but

together we sway softly

and ignore each other

hum about birds and boats,

whisper earnest i love you’s

“can i kiss you?”

sometimes i’m not sure

who said it first, or who

was more afraid,

or who smiled and said yes.

it was dark

and you were warm;

i felt safe and could sleep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is tHE most baby gay thing ive ever seen, and it's barely even passable but rereading it made me wanna cry a lil? tfw you kiss a girl for the first time at school behind the big storage container and also youre best friends and also you don't start dating until youre both seniors for some reason


	6. blind (2014)

When we were little

he used to ask what I could see;

I would reach, find his shoulder

as we sat in safe pockets of silence

on the playground

and whisper playfully,

“the sky is whale song –

can you see? they sing

to each other

so the small ones

won’t get lost”

Childish summers stretched wide

like dancing hands,

red with heat and orange

with his laughter. Uneven

sidewalks, my hand steady

on foreign walls, always

moving forward with him.

Those lazy days we learned the language

of one another –

he taught me green

is the shade of thickets,

blue that cool echo of water

bouncing off bathroom tile. 

He liked to ask what I could see.

Sometimes I’d say nothing.

Take his hand

and the pocket full of silence,

let him see enough

for the both of us.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one's a bit weird to look back on, just as someone who's grown and come to understand more about blindness and weird 'blind people tropes', stuff like that. but it's fine i think. also quite like the art for it still.


	7. Our Journey (2014)

It is stretched far out before me,

the mile-by-mile long fabric of sand;

every wrinkle makes a mountain.

Here are stars on earth, dust

glittering against the faint touch of sunlight. And

amid the refraction of light as diamonds,

you appear as a blur at the edge

of my sight. (…)

You are not the first, though every time

I hope you’ll be the last.

Together we create the warm loneliness.

This world busy with the chatter of our hearts.

I was free to fly before, but with you

I last

just a bit longer before I must fall.

We say nothing as we slide

our heels down sand dunes

hand-in-hand toward cold desert night.

And the drum

of something far off and inevitable – (…)

which cannot

be helped.

We will someday drown. Float silently

away from one another

into the fabric of somewhere bright

and white;

sand becomes snow and all is

silence.

On that day when you want to sleep,

stay up with me instead. There is more to see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bet you cant guess what THIS poem is about/inspired by 
> 
> (also, wild, i'm deeply interested in the use of (...) in the poem, but i legitimately can't remember if those are meant to be there? was it a weird editing thing, or are they on purpose? does it even matter at this point??? i kept 'em in because i like them lol) 
> 
> also ngl i was on some next level shit with the picture for this one. good concept, good colors... im nodding...


	8. Backbone (2014)

The ways are dark,

smelling of dust

and leather backs.

Snapping turtle tombs, hard-shelled,

but he always found such creatures

fascinating. He’d drag one finger

delicately

across their spines. But never

pinch forefinger and thumb. Never

catch that bit of skin at the top,

pull, tilt the book back

to reveal its face.

So he’d skim titles and

play the spines

like cell bars.

Sometimes he would tilt his head

and view the aisles like

long curving stretches

and walk in circles,

feel more well-rounded;

not like a tiger

pacing by glass

back and forth up down

up down

inside an enclosure

only mirroring the memory

of a comfortable habitat.

Legs straight, spine

curved, his back ached

with the effort of hiding in

dusty shadows, but

the quiet was delicate in places

like this.

Here he could skim fingers

over titles, play

with the spines

of snapping tombs

and not get bitten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one's kinda interesting, in that i barely remember working on it, but it still holds up a bit. the intent i was going for wasn't immediately obvious to me upon a reread, at least not until more than halfway through. i think this has a bit of room to be interpreted in a couple of different ways, which is nice. i'm recognizing that a lot of my earlier poems were quite straightforward wrt tone/intent. 
> 
> mm im shaking my head at this artwork though. a bit lazy... 4/10 could've been better


	9. Chapter 9

She didn’t receive news for three days.

If not for the roaming weeds

and growing list of chores,

she might never have noticed the girl’s

extended absence.

It was, to all, a tragic tale.

The hunter brought all that remained:

empty basket, empty hood.

He’d kindly cleaned the fur of the beast

who had stolen her child; the coat

cut clean from his back.

She put them in the middle room

to remember her by:

the grey mixed well with tattered red.

Her mourning was short.

She would keep her new fur;

that cloak would soon lose

its comforting shade.

It would be thrown out

when it no longer proved

an attractive centerpiece.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i still REALLY like this one a lot, actually, and I wish the artwork accompaniment was a bit better. this might be my favorite of the chapbook batch.
> 
> the original prompt we got which inspired this poem was 'taking a classic fairy tale and writing from an unexpected perspective'. we were shown a poem about one of the transformed mice in cinderella as an example (which is a really good poem, it was about existential dread and i wish i could find it)
> 
> anyways, i think this poem speaks for itself, which is great.


	10. Doomed (2014)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY WELL. This one hits a bit harder than I remembered (I honestly didn't remember this poem AT ALL until I looked it over again). So, cws for:
> 
> \- animal cruelty/abuse   
> \- suicide/death mentions  
> \- school shooting mention  
> \- emphasis on being unable to breath / repetition of the phrase [x cannot breathe]

** **

Once upon a time there was a little girl

who plucked the wings off dragonflies;

they glittered like opals in the sunlight.

Somewhere far away, a group of teenagers

drench a dog with gasoline

and set the mutt on fire.

They watch it dance down dark asphalt avenues,

sharp orange heat reflecting off every window.

Every once in a while

a faceless boy

locks himself in the bathroom, erased and sent

to spiral downward with his blood

as it drains from the tub.

At some point, perhaps even now, someone is taken

by the throat

and drowned

and they cannot breathe, the water burns,

they cannot breathe, we are silent as we bury

the elderly in our backyards,

they cannot breathe,

the earth is fertile with beaten holocaust corpses

who cannot breathe

and children are shot during history class,

children who didn’t have time to learn breathing

is a rhythmic process

they are doomed to repeat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that last stanza is um... a bit too jarringly relatable for something i wrote in twenty-fucking-fourteen


End file.
